It takes all the revenue from two state tax buckets (income and sales) and our local property tax bucket to cover present state and local governmental expenses.

When tax revenues are lowered for a specific tax bucket, as in the case of the governor’s state income tax proposal, the expenses covered by those diminished revenues must be obtained from the property or sales tax buckets (assuming you’re not cutting programs).

Now, with our legislators inhibiting the sale tax from rising and preventing parity with existing state revenue levels – to make up for the lost revenues from the governor’s income tax bucket – our property tax becomes the tax bucket of last resort.

And unless you dissolve some programs and services, your question should be: Which tax bucket presently extracts taxes more fairly? I suggest it is not the property tax bucket.

If you agree, then it’s time to either communicate with your legislator or within a year expect a large property tax increase (about 10 percent) and/or cuts in education and infrastructure.

But as we repeatedly contemplate these insane tax debates, we should consider the root cause, which is grounded in our governmental structures. It’s where the true savings lay.

Statehood occurred in 1820. With improvements in communications, transportation and infrastructure over the past 195 years, you’d think we would have consolidated some state and local governmental structures and eliminated the corresponding administrations.

With 1.33 million people, why do we support almost 500 duplicative municipalities, a huge Legislature, tiny school systems, superintendents and communities without students, 15 full-service county jails along with state prisons and a Department of Corrections, etc.?

Why not halve all the governmental structures, keep our programs and, additionally, save 10 percent?

Just asking, ’cause you’ve chosen high taxes.

Stephen Gorden

North Yarmouth

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